A non-contact integrated circuit (IC) card is used as, for example, an electronic money card, a transport pass, or a card for room entry management. Such an IC card can record large volume data and encrypt data, and is also excellent in terms of security, when compared to other types of card, such as a magnetic card.
A non-contact communication device that carries out near-field non-contact wireless communication includes a device operating as an active side that outputs an electromagnetic wave from the device and modulates the electromagnetic wave to send a command to an opponent device, and a passive side that carries out load modulation of the electromagnetic wave output from the opponent device to respond to the command.
A communication method for carrying out communication in an IC card processing system including three non-contact IC cards, in which the non-contact IC cards have both passive side and active side functions, and the non-contact IC card operating as the passive side switches to the active side during the communication has been proposed (see Patent Document 1).